I was compelled to do an interesting flight to an interesting destination. How often do we actually go to Iceland in our lifetime, or if not, only virtually? My parents had the opportunity to a few years back, and this flight recreates their original flight to Keflavik Airport in Iceland.

You will need to download a few items for this flight - first, you will want to download Project Opensky's TF-FIU.ZIP - Icelandair in the file library right here at FlightSim.Com, and this is optional for you Google Earth users, download Flips - FLIPS11.ZIP which is a terrific utility to be able to see your flight path and see any land marks of interest on the journey before you begin.

I know from my prior articles, that I stated that those who have real world weather capability should always use real world weather. I went against that today, for I wanted decent screen shots for my readers. As you can tell from the Doppler Radar shot from Channel 12, that today's weather was not a good choice with real world, for the clouds extended far past Maine on that day.

Weather from local Channel 12

Ready to start? Okay - you downloaded the aircraft, and you downloaded Flips - let's go. First of all, open Microsoft Flight Simulator to the flight planning page, select the Project Open Sky 757 Iceland Air circa 2003 and load your starting airport as Logan Airport in Boston, Massachusetts and select your ending point as Keflavik in Iceland. I made a slight error in my computations in the beginning, so there will be no landing shot. I went to Reykjavik airport by mistake, which I got confused from my parent's flight.

If you aren't up to real world weather on the day you choose to do your flight, feel free to choose the Fair Weather theme. I also always fly with FS Real Time, so load that as well afterwards if you haven't done so all ready. Okay - the flight plan has been plotted, but you will want to edit yours to match mine, and set altitude for 35000 feet.

KBOS BOS 73P2 RUBIN BIKF

Traffic waiting for take off

I was ready to go at Logan Airport, and when I received clearance, I was overly excited to begin my long journey up North after I went through the feeding line (that's what it reminded me of anyway with the amount of traffic that day at Logan).

After take off clearance was given, I immediately applied full throttle and lifted nicely off the ground. I recognized some other interesting spots along our journey - remember the foliage tour? Mountains sure look nice and impressive from higher altitudes too...

Saddleback Mountain from 35000 feet

As we get far north (almost past Canada to the open water before Greenland) you'll see that the sun is starting to set...it is also only 3:52 in the afternoon, so it apparently gets darker earlier up north - Iceland has times of the year where it only stays light for a few hours, and then sometimes light all day. That must be different to get used to especially if you are a visitor.

We will now be going over the long period of our journey, over Greenland to 73P2. Just follow your GPS and you should be fine, and arrive safe and sound at Keflavik. When landing at Keflavik, remember to follow the controller's approach instructions, load up the vectors into your GPS, and line up with the runway and touch this bird down nicely. You have just completed a six and a half hour journey successfully. Pat yourself on the back, and stretch a while after this one - I'm sure you'll be needing it!

Sun starting to set past Canada - Only 3:52 pm!

Next month's Flap's Flap Preview:

The movies are alive and well in Flight Simulator. Next month's column will cover some of the add-ons that developers have made based on movies, and also cover the flights of the famous Indiana Jones films. Not actually doing them, but preparing flight plans for those courageous enough to try to go to Nepal from San Francisco in a Boeing 314 Clipper.

My system specs have now changed as well. I now have the following upgrades done to my PC from the picture that used to be on the bottom right of my articles: 1 gigabyte of RAM now instead of 512 mb, an extra 160 gb hard drive on my PC just for FS - we know all the goodies that are made for this program - I needed the extra storage space! Also I have now upgraded my graphic card, from a 128 mb nVidia Geforce FX 5200 to a 256 mb AGP 8X ATI Radeon 9550. It's a winner!

Inspired to do the flight from my article? I love to hear from my readers. Please email.

Now, for some light legal stuff:

Flap’s Flap does not accept any responsibility for varied performance in systems. Please note my system specs and the display properties work fine with MY system. Set your display properties accordingly to your computer. Also, with any How To items that are given in these articles, please use at your own risk! I will hold no responsibility to any damage done to your system. And, as always, remember: Back up your files before changing them!

John J. Thuot II
ragtopjohnny01@aol.com